This acclaimed, long-running documentary series is a showcase for independent films on a wide variety of subjects, from the heartwarming (`Sweet Old Song,' about a 91-year-old musician) to the whimsical (`The Sweetest Sound,' a study of names) to the contr (more…)This acclaimed, long-running documentary series is a showcase for independent films on a wide variety of subjects, from the heartwarming (`Sweet Old Song,' about a 91-year-old musician) to the whimsical (`The Sweetest Sound,' a study of names) to the controversial (`Live Free or Die,' about an abortion doctor). Whatever the subject, the most important criterion is that the films express a `point of view.'

Season 14, Episode 11 Promises

First Aired: December 13, 2001

Profiling seven youngsters---three Arabs, four Jews---who live in and around Jerusalem. (The documentary was filmed between 1997 and 2000.) One boy wants to be Israel's “religious army commander” when he grows up. A girl's father, a journalist with ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, is in an Israeli jail. And two have lost friends to Intifada violence. But one of the filmmakers, a U.S.-born, Israeli-raised Jew named B.Z. Goldberg (with experience in conflict resolution), tries to get the youngsters together. He succeeds, to a degree. In war, one Israeli notes, “both sides lose.”